It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515Quotes
No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
—Hannah Arendt, 1958Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BCA real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCYou campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCWhy has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944